NEW: The Power of Standing Still (1/1) by Leslie Sholly PG-13 MSR
PennySyc
AUTHOR: Leslie Sholly
E-MAIL: Penn...@aol.com
DISTRIBUTION: Automatic archives and Spookys,
yes. Anywhere else, with my name and address
attached. And please let me know so I
can visit.
SPOILER WARNING: Pilot, Dreamland, all things,
Requiem
RATING: PG-13
CLASSIFICATION: SRA
KEYWORDS: MSR
SUMMARY: Mulder learns to stay still.
DISCLAIMER: Chris Carter, 1013, and Fox own
the X-Files and the characters herein. I
mean no infringement or disrespect.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Please be sure to read the
poem at the end, since it inspired the story. Further
notes at the end.
FEEDBACK: I respond to and save every note, no
matter how brief. Please write me at
Penn...@aol.com (Leslie)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Power of Standing Still
by Leslie Sholly
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the
chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness
concerning all acts of initiative and creation. The
moment one definitely commits oneself, then
Providence moves too."
- Goethe
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What little boy doesn't imagine flying in a
spaceship? I was fascinated by the astronauts and
the moon landings; Star Trek wasn't entertainment
to me, but a plausible vision of the future. I
dreamed of space travel long before I took up the
quest that has dominated my adult life.
Like so many other things, the reality doesn't live
up to my fantasies.
Space travel isn't like Star Trek. It's not even as
exciting as a plane ride or an ocean cruise.
The blackness, the void of space, is, in a word,
boring. There's nothing to see--no puffy clouds or
majestic mountain ranges. There's no sound--no
rushing wind or crashing waves. There's not even a
sense of motion. Although I know intellectually that
we must be moving at a speed that is
incomprehensible, that flies in the face of what our
current understanding of physics teaches is possible,
as far as my perception goes, we might as well be
standing still.
I'm aware of the irony of this forced
inaction--this standing still. Not too long ago, Scully
asked me why I don't ever just stay still. I was
annoyed by the question; I didn't pause to consider
it seriously. When I answered that I wouldn't know
what I'd be missing I was really just being flippant.
But over the past few weeks, before I was taken,
we had both been trying harder to slow down, to
stay in the moment, to be *still* together now and
then. And now I'm moving at close to the speed of
light, albeit against my will. Now that my speed is
beyond my control, I'd give anything to be able to
stand still--for now it's by moving that I'm missing
something. And that something--that someone--is
Scully.
I am imprisoned here but not because I'm in
a small room that I suppose might be called a cell.
After all, as the saying goes, four walls do not a
prison make. Of course I am a captive and there's
no escaping from a spaceship. But I've been
well-treated. There's been no torture, no experiments.
I have free run of the ship most of the time. The
Bounty Hunter's loyalties and motivations are
unclear to me, but for whatever reason he and his
kind seem to consider me special. I've been told
that we are traveling to his home world, that I will
be given the opportunity to learn the answers to all
my questions once we arrive there. The prospect
should fill me with excitement and anticipation;
instead, it leaves me cold.
The torment within my own mind holds me captive.
I'm a prisoner of my thoughts, of my anxieties,
of my guilt. I shouldn't be here. I should never
have left Scully, most especially not under false
pretenses. Yes, I feared for her safety. But I knew
that I was at risk as well. I was more than half
hoping to end up where I am now. That quest for
knowledge overcame my loyalty to Scully, led me to
perform what truly was the ultimate ditch.
Not that I haven't been punished for my
desertion. When I looked up into the stream of
radiant light that came from the space craft, when
my eyes met the Bounty Hunter's, when I realized
what was about to happen to me, I knew at last,
when it was too late, that it wasn't what I wanted.
For all my climbing, for all my questing, when I
finally reached my goal, when I finally reached the
stars, all I wanted was to come down again, to go
home.
Funny how one quest has led to another.
I went into this to find Samantha. Somewhere along
the way, I realized that Scully had become more
important to me--that finding a cure for her cancer,
learning who had hurt her and stolen her babies,
getting that Goddamned chip out of her neck, was
more important. Then, somehow, with colonization
looming darkly on the horizon, the fate of the entire
world seemed to lie in my reluctant hands.
I had to come full circle to find the truth, the
truth about the aliens and the truth about myself.
Back to Oregon, back to where Scully and I first
worked together, when I introduced her to my crazy
theories and she gave them--and me--a chance.
Better for her, perhaps, had I convinced her then
that I was nuts, so that she would have run for her
life after that first case.
I couldn't help but notice how the world had
kept moving since our first visit to Oregon. Billy
Miles had married and divorced. Theresa Nemman
was a mother. They were just kids in their early
twenties when we first met them. Despite the
trauma of multiple abductions, they had gone on
with their lives. Whereas for all our running
Scully and I might as well have been standing still--at
least until recently. How ironic that just when
we decided to make a change and take a chance on
a new kind of relationship, fate stepped in once more
to throw us right back to the beginning.
Seven years ago, Scully lay on my bed as I sat
on the floor and told her about my quest. "Nothing
else matters to me," I told her. Seven years later, I
joined her in the bed, cuddled her close in my arms,
and told her that there had to be an end, that there
was so much more to life. And I meant it. Once I
told Diana that "At some point, you just have to
accept that the only way those you love are going to
survive is if you give up." I was close to that point.
I wanted only the best for Scully. Her
happiness--and, let's be honest, my own happiness,
which could only be found with her--was becoming my quest
now.
"Don't you ever just want to stop? Get out of the
damn car? Settle down and live something
approaching a normal life?" In my mind I can hear
her voice so clearly. She wanted me to stop
moving so we could *both* stop moving. I swear to
God, this is my last ditch. If I ever get away from
here, I *will* slow down. I will. I'll turn my back
on all of this if Scully wants me to. I'll protect her,
and I'll protect myself.
I clutch Scully's cross in my fist. This is a
symbol of her faith, not just in God and in His power
to protect me, but in us and that we will be together
again. If someone asked her, she might claim she
gave it to me as protection, as a way of sending God
with me; or she might say she sent it along so I
would carry part of her with me. But there's more
to it than that. I'm sure she wouldn't admit to any
superstition, but I think she gave it to me because it
always comes back to her. Does she think it will
drag me back with it, even against my will, like a
magical talisman from some ancient legend?
I may not be able to stop the ship, but I can stop
time in my mind and slow my own self down--calm
my racing heart and my furious thoughts. I can
focus on one moment at a time--the perfect moments
that seem to transcend time--that make up the most
beautiful memories of a life. They flash through my
mind like a slide show--moments of perception, of
clarity.
When I took Scully in my arms in the hallway of
a hospital and realized that her life was mine, that in
saving her I would be saving myself.
Or in another hallway, years later, when our lips
came within a millimeter of touching.
On a baseball field in Arlington, my arms
wrapped around her softness, the smell of her freshly
washed hair in my nostrils.
The painful quick beat of my heart,
unacknowledged at the time, when she said,
"Mulder, I wouldn't put myself on the line for
anyone but you."
Scully on my couch, saying, "I'm reasonably
happy," implying--I was sure--that her happiness was
somehow due to me.
Scully's body silhouetted in the moonlight by my
bed as she prepared to join me there for the first
time.
But images, even the perfect images of a photographic
memory, are not enough. I ache to hold Scully in my
arms, to hear her voice, to smell her skin. No amount
of knowledge and no quest can ever fulfill me as she
does.
If only I could slide back down that stream of
light that brought me here. If only there was a little
cord to pull along the wall of the ship, like on a city
bus. I imagine myself yelling, "Stop the spaceship, I
want to get off." How crazy is that?
Crazy or not, it's the only idea I have. And so I
go to the Bounty Hunter. I don't have to speak
aloud for him to hear me, but somehow it's
important to me to give voice to this request. I
haven't heard my own voice in days and it's startling
in the utter stillness.
"Stop the ship," I say, fully realizing how
ridiculous the words are even as I say them.
He looks at me, a measuring look. I feel him
probing my mind, the contact unwelcome but
unavoidable, and quickly becoming familiar. He
raises one eyebrow quizzically in an incongruously
human gesture.
"Stop the ship, " I repeat. "I want to get off. I
want to go home."
"You puzzle me, Mulder," he says. Yes, I'm on
a first--well, last--name basis with him at this point.
"You have been well-treated here. And soon we
will reach our destination. The knowledge you
seek--as well as other things as yet unimaginable to
you--awaits you there."
"I don't care," I say, and am amazed at how true
my words are. "I don't care," I repeat, more
strongly. "I don't care about that. This used to be
my life, but it's not anymore. I want to go home to
Scully. That's *all* I want."
And then the control room begins to spin and
lights are flashing everywhere and I think I see a
look of amazement and surprise on the Bounty
Hunter's normally implacable countenance . . .
And I am lying in a bed, clad only in boxers,
covered by a fluffy comforter, with Scully's head
pillowed on my shoulder.
I hardly dare to breathe. If this is a dream, it's a
vivid one. I feel the warmth and softness of her
skin, the rising and falling of her chest as she
breathes. Full moonlight illuminates her face
so clearly that I can even see the tracks left on her
cheeks by tears she must have shed before she fell
asleep. The distant sounds of partiers and the
ever-present sirens drift through the half-opened
window, providing aural evidence that I am indeed
in Georgetown.
Then Scully's eyes flutter open and close again.
"Mulder," she mumbles sleepily. Suddenly her eyes
fly open once more and shock registers on her face.
"I'm dreaming," she says.
"I thought *I* was."
"Oh, my God. Oh, my God," she repeats, and
then clutches me with a desperation that is both
touching and gratifying.
I stroke her hair and wrap my arms more tightly
around her. She's real; it's not a dream. I can't
explain it and for once I'm experiencing a
paranormal phenomenon I have no interest in
investigating. I'm here, and I believe, and that's
enough for me.
Presently, Scully relaxes in my arms, wipes fresh
tears from her eyes, and asks, "How?"
"I told the Bounty Hunter to stop the spaceship.
I told him I wanted to come home."
"And then what?"
"And then . . . I was here."
"Just like that?" My little skeptic.
"Just like that," I confirm. "I missed you, Scully,
so much. I didn't care about the spaceship--the
quest--any of that. All I wanted once I was there
was to come home to you. You were all I
wanted--all I needed."
Scully smiles at me then bites her lip uncertainly.
Suddenly she seems to reach a decision, and takes
my hand and places it on her abdomen. "Is there
room in your life for one more?" she asks shyly.
Struggling to a sitting position, I pull down the
comforter and lift her nightshirt so I can see better.
I place my hand again on the stretched skin covering
the roundness of her stomach.
"Mine?" I almost squeak, hardly daring to
believe.
"Ours," she amends, placing her hand over mine.
"How?" It is my turn to ask.
"I don't know," she replies. "A miracle, maybe.
Like the one that brought you here."
I lie down next to her again and gather her into
my arms.
"I think--I think--I think we're here, now, because
we both decided to slow down," I tell her. "We
both had to want to stop enough for us to reach this
point, and when we wanted it badly enough, it
happened. Both of us had to admit what was most
important to us. You reached that point before I
did, Scully. And I'm sorry it took me this long to
join you."
"You're here now," she whispers sleepily. "God,
this is so surreal, Mulder. We really should be
headed for the hospital to get you checked out; we
should call Skinner, the Gunmen, my mom--they'll
all be so happy--"
"Tomorrow," I promise her. "Tomorrow. No
need to wake them."
"'Kay," she agrees. She reaches out one slender
finger to touch her cross, still dangling from its chain
around my neck.
"You still have it. God brought you back to me,"
she says.
"God?" I smile at her. "Maybe. Or maybe it
was alien technology. Or some sort of extreme wish
fulfillment. Some might suggest karma, or fate, or a
strong psychic bond that manifested itself physically--"
"God," she interrupts, with certainty.
And as we sink into slumber, together at last, I
decide she is probably right.
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The Master Speed
No speed of wind or water rushing by
But you have speed far greater. You can climb
Back up a stream of radiance to the sky,
And back through history up the stream of time.
And you were given this swiftness, not for haste
Nor chiefly that you may go where you will,
But in the rush of everything to waste,
That you may have the power of standing still
Off any still or moving thing you say.
Two such as you with such a master speed
Cannot be parted nor be swept away
From one another once you are agreed
That life is only life forevermore
Together wing to wing and oar to oar.
--Robert Frost
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THE END
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Thanks to my friends at XScenes for
betaing, emotional support, and sharing.
Thanks for reading! Feedback, please, to
Penn...@aol.com (Leslie).